


Earth 27

by Anonymous



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Batfamily (DCU), Brotherly Bonding, Dimension Travel, Gen, No Beta, Protective Dick Grayson, Protective Jason Todd, Sort Of, Stockholm Syndrome, Tags May Change, interdimension kidnapping, not even proofread y'all, off screen major character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24775798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: On Earth 27, Dick Grayson is dead. On Earth 32, Dick Grayson is missing.Dick knows neither of this. But he knows something is wrong. Ever since he woke up from an injury, his family has been acting strange. Jason won’t stop hugging him, Damian avoids him at all costs, and Tim’s hair is definitely too long.Or, in a universe where Dick dies, his brothers secretly kidnap another Dick Grayson into their world. But that Dick Grayson has siblings too, and they’re searching for him.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 163
Kudos: 728
Collections: Anonymous





	1. one

**EARTH 27**

I.

Dick’s first thought upon waking is that the air is different. Not in any articulable way — it’s not the smell, the density, the texture. Whatever machinery in his body that is detecting the difference must be ancient. It triggers an instinct. An intuition.

“He’s awake.”

A voice. A surprised one. Dick blinks his eyes, clearing the stickiness from sleep, and sees stalactites. 

“Dickie?” 

He turns his head, and it’s Jason. Jason in the cave, which isn’t a rare sight anymore, not like it used to be, but still an unexpected one. Last Dick heard, Jason was deep undercover, not willing to share the when, whys, and hows in order to prevent anyone from interfering.

“Aren’t you—” Dick begins, but then he notices the shadows beneath Jason’s eyes, and how he seems far older than when Dick last saw him. There’s also a strange look in his eye. Desperate. Like a hungry dog. 

“You’re awake,” Jason says, like he can’t believe it. Dick sits up a little, realizing he’s on a medical cot in the cave. There’s a pulse ox clamped to his finger, a blood pressure cuff wrapped around his left arm. “You’re actually awake,” Jason says again. Then he lunges. 

Dick startles, so much so to make the cot frame rattle, but then, once Jason’s arms wrap around him and simply settle there, Dick realizes it’s not an attack. It’s a hug. A very un-Jason hug. Dick would know. He steals Jason hugs whenever possible. Jason hugs are brisk. Bony. The younger boy always drew his body concave, leaving only arms and shoulders for contact. 

But now, their chests are pressed together, and Dick feels warm. Cigarette smoke lingers in Jason’s hair, which is pressed against his nose. Jason hasn’t hugged him like that since he was little. Dick’s arms lag in reaction. 

“You’re freaking him out.”

Dick looks up, and it’s Tim. Immediately, Dick frowns. Tim looks sickly — pale, too skinny, Dick notices, even before Tim rounds the cot. His hair is long, far longer than the newly trimmed cut Tim had been sporting the last Dick saw him. 

Jason pulls away. 

“Fuck, sorry,” Jason mutters, quickly turning his head away. Dick knows that movement. It means he’s trying not to cry. Alarm bells ring in his head. 

“What happened?” Dick demands. Tim glances at Jason, but Jason is still turned away. “How long was I out?”

A beat of silence. Dick could hear the hum of a computer monitor. Behind Tim and Jason, the batcomputer is open, projecting sterile, blue light onto the cave floor. Dick sees the date in the top corner. 

“I was out for a week?” Dick asks. Tim tugs at his ear.

“A long week,” Tim says, not looking at him. Jason isn’t looking at him either. “Do you remember anything… before?”

Dick thinks. He remembers it being a lax week. Some game came out. Damian wanted him to buy it. He was out of milk. The news kept talking about a Bludhaven government official who had a scandal. It rained a lot. 

“No,” Dick says slowly, watching his brothers glance at each other. They seem to be debating something. Tim speaks first. 

“Two-Face got to you,” Tim says. “You decided to patrol in Gotham with us that night, remember?”

Dick doesn’t, but apparently he doesn’t remember anything.

“He got you real good,” Jason says. “Cracked you over the head with a baseball bat.”

Dick winces, instinctively reaching his arm up to touch the back of his head. Surprisingly, it’s only a little tender. He feels stitches. 

“That took me out for a week?” Dick asks. 

“Yeah,” Tim says quietly. Dick looks at his brothers. They look tired. Beyond tired. More fragile than Dick has seen them in a while. He wants to hold them in his arms, protect them from being hurt ever again. 

“Come here,” Dick says, beckoning at Tim. Jason had gotten his hug, but Tim kept a distance away from the cot. An unsure, wary distance. Tim’s eyes shift at that, and he steps closer. Dick closes the last distance, grabbing Tim’s arm to pull him close. He tucks Tim’s head under his chin, feeling the boy soften against him, his arms slowly wrapping around him, clinging tightly. Dick cards his fingers through Tim’s hair. 

Tim’s hair is very long.

* * *

They help him upstairs. Dick’s legs feel wobbly, the aftermath of lying in bed all week. Nonetheless, he can walk just fine on his own. Tim and Jason still stick close to him, Tim’s fist not letting go of the hem of his shirt.

“Is Bruce home?” Dick asks. “I want to say hi.”

“He’s out,” Tim says. “Work.”

They lead him up the stairs to his bedroom. Dick’s door is already ajar, and inside, there’s a figure on the bed.

“Damian,” Tim sighs. 

Damian is lounged on the covers, a sketchpad in hand. He snaps shut the sketchpad immediately, face curling into a scowl. His eyes settle on Tim, then Jason, then Dick. His face falls slack. 

“You,” Damian says. His eyes narrow.

“You?” Dick questions, breaking away from his brothers. Tim’s grip on his shirt doesn’t give until the last minute. He gives Damian a wide smile. “Not even a _Grayson_?”

Dick jumps on the bed, wrapping Damian up into a hug. Only after a second does he realize Damian isn’t resisting like usual. Instead, he’s oddly pliant. Dick lets go.

“You alright, Dami?” Dick asks, concerned. Damian’s not looking at him, which means something is bothering him. His lips are clamped together. Dick smooths down a cowlick at the back of his head, and Damian wriggles his head away. “Did you miss me?” Dick asks. 

Damian doesn’t answer. Not even a stubborn _no_. A creak in the doorway reminds Dick that Tim and Jason are both there. Both there and staring at the two of them, as though they were specimens to be observed. Tim clears his throat. 

“I’m gonna go,” Tim says. “Gonna… take a nap.”

He leaves, and it’s just Jason. 

“I’m going to head out too. Before the old man gets back,” Jason says. Dick sits up.

“No, no, stay,” Dick says. Jason hesitates in the doorway. “At least for dinner. Come on, Jay. I haven’t seen you since you went undercover.”

Jason gives him an odd look, but his shoulders relax. 

“Fine. Whatever,” Jason says. “I’ll stay for dinner. But then I’m gone.”

Jason leaves them too. And it’s just him and Damian. Damian, who still won’t meet his eyes. Dick sighs.

“Tim tells me it was a real bad week, huh?”

Damian’s arms are crossed. He stares resolutely at Dick’s bedcovers. It seems Alfred has replaced his usual blue sheets with something new and stripey. 

“Sorry, kiddo,” Dick says gently, pulling Damian back into a hug. Damian gives only a little resistance. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Damian suddenly jerks out of Dick’s grasp. 

“I wasn’t worried for _you_ ,” Damian snaps, clambering off the bed. He snatches his sketchpad off Dick’s bed then storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Dick stares at the door, then falls back onto the bed with a sigh.

* * *

“Bruce!” Dick shouts, leaping two steps at a time down the stairs, nose nearly slamming into Bruce’s chest. “Guess who’s awake!”

Bruce is dressed in a suit, which means he just returned from a board meeting. His eyes are tired, face set like stone as he stares down at Dick uncomprehending. Dick’s wide grin falters. 

“Uh—”

“Dick,” Bruce says, sounding a bit breathless. There’s a clatter, and Dick realizes he’s dropped his briefcase onto the tile floor. “You’re awake.”

Dick rolls his eyes.

“That’s what everybody has been saying, yes.”

Dick hardly registers as Bruce crushes him into a hug. His ribs ache a little — perhaps they were bruised — and he smells coffee on Bruce’s shirt. Dick lets out a laugh. 

“First Jason and now you, huh?” Dick jokes. He feels Bruce stiffen. 

“Jason’s here?” Bruce asks, pulling away. His eyes still linger on Dick, tracing him up and down, scanning for injuries. 

“What, did you guys get into another fight?” Dick asks. Last Dick knew, Bruce and Jason were getting along fine. Of course, Dick had been unconscious for a week. For all he knew, they could have started a new row. “Come on, B,” Dick says. “I told him to stay for dinner. Just… be okay with that.”

Bruce looks like he wants to argue. Dick expects him to argue — but then Bruce just sighs and collapses a little. A hint at a wan smile curves the edges of his lips. 

“You shouldn’t be up, not after what you’ve been through,” Bruce says, picking back up his suitcase and guiding Dick out of the foyer. 

“I can take a bump to the head,” Dick says. Bruce stops then, turning to look at Dick seriously. Bruce is a tall man. Seemingly infinitely taller, no matter how much Dick tries to catch up. Insurmountable shoulders, an inmobile face… Wally once asked him what it was like to have Batman as a father. How Dick managed to not be afraid of him. Truth is, Dick is always a little afraid. He knows Bruce loves him, will protect him, but it’s a gut reaction to shudder just a bit when Bruce stares him down. 

“It’s more than a bump to the head and you know it,” Bruce says. His eyes scan Dick up and down again, one last search for injuries. He nods, satisfied. “If you’ve had enough with bed rest, go help Alfred in the kitchen. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you up.”

* * *

Alfred has Dick dicing green apples for a pie. The man gives Dick a polite hug upon greeting him, which throws Dick off. Then there was the silence. Alfred always knew Dick liked to talk, and the elderly man would fill the kitchen with mentions from the day’s newspaper, or share old knowledge, like the best way to peel and apple. But Alfred says nothing. Just proceeds with preparing dinner. Dick’s knife thunks again and again against the cutting board. The fruit’s acid itches his nose. 

“You know Bruce _and_ Jason hugged me?” Dick says, starting on a new apple. In the corner of his eye, Alfred drops pasta shells into a pot to boil. The pasta shells hit the bottom of the pot heavily. “Amazing what a week can do, huh?”

Alfred slides a lid over the pot.

“You gave them quite a scare,” Alfred says, and nothing more. Dick suddenly feels guilty for joking about his injury. His arm drifts unconsciously toward the back of his head, but he flinches away before he can touch the stitches with his juice covered fingers. 

“I feel pretty good, actually, all things considered,” Dick says, slicing into the apple. His knife hits the cutting board with a satisfactory thud. He glances at Alfred. “All thanks to you, Alfred.”

Dick expects a smile. Not a big one, but one of Alfred’s little smiles. He gets nothing.

“I try my best, Master Dick.”

Dick frowns and finishes chopping his apples. 

At dinner, the smell of apple pie floats in the air, doing nothing to soften the tension as Jason takes his seat next to Dick, his eyes avoiding Bruce. Bruce does the same. Dick shoots Tim a look, hoping to catch his gaze, but Tim is too focused on the pasta. 

“You haven’t made this in forever, Alfred,” Tim praises, sliding a hefty helping onto his plate. Alfred smiles at the boy, and Dick feels a strange twist in his gut. 

Damian wanders into the dining room last, a scowl carved onto his face. He takes his usual seat across from Dick, not bothering to acknowledge anyone. After Tim’s brief outburst, it is quiet. Only the scrapes of silverware against porcelain. Dick feels eyes drift to him time to time, senses Jason’s nervous shifting beside him. 

“Guys,” Dick says, “it’s too quiet.”

There’s a pause. Then Tim lets out a snort. It disrupts his chewing, and the boy coughs. Damian rolls his eyes. 

“Pathetic,” Damian says, but it’s lighthearted. Jason nods at the bit of tomato sauce that had gotten onto Damian’s shirt. 

“Speak for yourself, kid.”

Damian huffs at that, and Dick sees Bruce duck his head down a little, trying to hide a smile. Damian catches the motion. 

“Father?” Damian cries, sounding outraged. “Are you laughing at me?”

Dick laughs as Bruce tries to defend himself. He’s all too aware of Tim’s tired eyes, the apple pie cooling on the table, the air that still seems to fill his lungs differently. But he must be tired. It’s been a long week. 

Everything’s returning back to normal.

II.

At Bruce’s insistence, Dick stays at the manor for three more days. Bruce keeps looking at him like he’s going to fall dead any moment. Each time Bruce looks at him like that, Dick unconsciously touches his stitches. Thing is, Dick has been hit in the head with a baseball bat before. He knows how it hurts. He knows it should hurt more.

But he’s not going to take Bruce’s concern for granted. Admittedly, it’s kind of nice having Bruce go easy on him. Tim gives him similar treatment, and it’s less nice. Not because Dick doesn’t appreciate it, rather Dick feel guilty having the younger boy look out for him. Dick doesn’t know what that week he was unconscious for was like, but if he had to guess, Bruce and Jason argued, leaving Tim as the mediator. No wonder the boy looked exhausted. 

On day four, Bruce reluctantly lets Dick head back to Bludhaven — so long as he lets Alfred drive him there. Dick agrees and says goodbye to Tim, who has trouble letting go of their hug, and Damian, who shrugs out of his hug and simply storms off. 

The drive over is quiet. Alfred doesn’t say a word. 

Upon stepping into his apartment, Dick can’t help but feel… off. He’s aware he’s messy. Each one of his siblings declares such every time they step into his apartment. Even so, there’s order to his messiness. The kitchen counter is for mail. The bedroom armchair for clothes that aren’t quite clean but aren’t quite dirty. His fridge is out of milk. He likes to tack Damian’s sketches and Tim’s odd doodles to the fridge. 

But all of that is different. 

He picks through the living room carefully. There’s a box next to the doorway now. Filled with mail. His neither clean and neither dirty clothes sit in a laundry basket on the floor of his bedroom. His fridge is stocked with milk. Damian’s drawings and Tim’s doodles have been taped to the kitchen wall. 

Dick carefully takes out his phone and calls Bruce. Bruce picks up after three rings. 

“Dick?” Bruce asks, sounding alert. “Is everything alright?”

Dick looks around his apartment. It’s _his_ apartment, that’s for sure. But everything is just a little off. He looks down at the phone for a moment, feeling embarrassed for calling Bruce because his already messy apartment got even more confusing. 

“Everything’s fine,” Dick says. “But… did any of you come by my apartment while I was gone? Alfred, maybe?”

There’s a pause. 

“I believe Tim dropped by. Alfred might have. Why?”

Dick stares at Damian’s wall of drawings. 

“Nothing. It’s just some things are out of place.” Dick pauses. “I think Alfred bought me milk.”

There’s a shuffling sound on the other end. Dick imagines Bruce in his office, a mountain of paperwork in front of him.

“Dick, are you okay?” Bruce asks. And Dick gets it. He’s been out for a week, should probably be getting more bed rest, and is now randomly calling to inquire about the organization of his apartment. 

“Yeah, I think I just need sleep,” Dick says, walking toward the bedroom. “Sorry for calling.”

Bruce grunts. 

“Don’t patrol tonight. Just get some rest,” Bruce says. He hangs up.

* * *

Dick can’t sleep, being not accustomed to afternoon naps, and instead opts for an early dinner and orders a pizza. After the pizza, he showers, careful of his stitches, then browses his phone in bed. His eyes ache at the bright light. 

It’s sometime around four when Dick hears his living room window creak open. He’s on the top floor of the complex, so he’s not particularly afraid of intruders. The heavy footsteps are also familiar. Only Jason insists on wearing the heaviest, bulkiest boots on the market. 

He listens as Jason fumbles around the kitchen for a bit. From the sounds of it, he’s stolen a slice of Dick’s pizza. Dick’s not sure what Jason’s doing here. He sets his phone onto the nightstand then curls over, pretending to be asleep. After a few more minutes, Dick’s bedroom door creaks open. 

It’s quiet for a few moments, as though Jason is just watching him. The thought disturbs Dick slightly. This isn’t part of Jason’s usual habits. Unless, of course, Dick has simply never noticed him sneaking into his apartment late at night before. 

He’s just about to get up and confront Jason when his brother walks over to the bed, kicks off his shoes, and sits down at the side of the bed. The bed creaks, which should be enough to wake him, so Dick takes it as an invitation to pretend to stir. 

“Jason?” he asks, thickening his voice with sleep. He rubs his eyes a little, turns over to face Jason. “What are you doing here?”

Jason doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, he looks down at his hands. He’s out of his gear, which surprises Dick. All he has on are sweatpants and a hoodie. Dick’s hoodie, upon closer glance. The grey one from Hudson University. Dick always saved it for sick days. The hoodie was baggy on him, and he liked curling up on the couch in it. 

He’s not sure how Jason got his hands on it.

“You okay?” Dick asks when Jason still hasn’t answered. He sets a palm on Jason’s shoulder. “Did you come all the way from Gotham?”

Jason nods. 

“Is it… is it a bad night?” Dick asks. They all have trouble sleeping. Jason particularly. But it’s been a while since Jason came to him because of it. In fact, Dick was sure Jason had been getting better. 

“Come on,” Dick says, pulling aside his covers. He pulls on Jason’s arm, and Jason doesn’t resist. He slides into the bed, curling up beneath the covers. Despite Jason’s strange hug four days ago, Dick keeps a bit of distance between them. He knows Jason prefers space. Always has, since he was little. But Dick lets their shoulders brush. A slight, minimal contact. A reassurance that he’s there. 

He falls asleep after that.

* * *

He goes back to Gotham for the weekend, still unsettled by how he left things with Damian. Alfred, too. He can’t believe things are somehow weird with Alfred. 

Before he leaves, he drops by the store, hoping to find that new game Damian wanted. He doesn’t find it. He even asks the store attendant, only to get a blank look. 

Dick figures he’ll just buy it online sometime, then. 

He sends a quick text to Jason, telling him he’ll be in Gotham that night, in case his brother wants to patrol together. He’s still not sure what went down between Jason and Bruce the other week, but he’s sure Jason feels more distanced than usual. 

Jason doesn’t respond.

He arrives in Gotham just a little before dinner. Tim greets him excitedly in the foyer. He holds back on a hug, though, pulling anxiously on his ear lobe instead, until Dick drags him into one. Tim melts into it. Dick ruffles his hair. 

“I swore you just got it cut,” Dicks says. “I thought you wanted to go for a shorter look for the summer.”

Tim pauses, and for a moment, they each stare at each other blankly. Tim paws Dick’s hand away. 

“Yeah, well, longer suits me better,” Tim says, leading him into the house. 

They lounge in the living room watching a movie. At some point, Dick senses a shadow in the doorway. 

“Dami,” Dick says, patting the spot on the couch beside him. “Join us.”

The pause that follows is long enough that Dick thinks Damian has left. Then the boy climbs over the back of the couch, plopping down into the seat beside him. Tim glances back at the boy from his sprawl on the floor curiously, but turns back to the movie. Damian gives Tim a scoff. He brushes off Dick’s arm when he tries to hug him, and maintains a foot of distance between them throughout the movie. 

Dinner is a quiet affair. Dick bounces with energy, excited to patrol after several days of rest. Bruce is reluctant still, asking Dick if he would not prefer to give it another week. Even Damian looks somewhat enthused that Dick would be joining them after dinner. 

“Oh, and Cassandra’s visiting next week,” Bruce says. Tim stills suddenly, looking pale. Dick frowns. 

“She’s not here?” Dick asks, keeping an eye on Tim. Tim recovers quickly, diving back into his mashed potatoes. 

“No,” Bruce says, eye brows furrowed a bit. “She… well, she—”

“Hong Kong,” Tim supplies. “We called her a few days ago to tell her you were okay, so she’s visiting.”

Tim tugs on his earlobe. 

After dinner, they give themselves two hours before heading down to the cave. Dick suits up, the suit hugging him a bit oddly. It was an older suit — he left his usual one back at his apartment — and he figured that was the cause. 

Truthfully, Dick had been hoping to patrol with Damian. The boy had been avoiding him like the plague, whether that be eye contact or physical contact. It unsettles Dick because, frankly, he thought Damian had already reached a level where he felt comfortable telling Dick what was wrong. But it seems Dick’s brush with Two-Face knocked them back a step or two. 

In the end, Robin goes with Batman, and Red Robin with Nightwing. Tim looks a little better than he did the week before, but Dick figures he could still use some destressing, so he takes Tim to a convenience store and buys him a slushie. 

There’s something about walking into a 7/11 at four in the morning, fully decked out in costume, that never fails to make Tim crack up. Dick breaks into a smile at his brother’s giggles, taking a plastic cup and browsing the wall of flavors. The slushies all spin behind their little plastic windows. All bright, neon colors. 

“What do you think?” Dick asks. Tim sidles up to him, still giddy. 

“Blue orange,” Tim says, and Dick takes a step toward the machines only to pause. 

“Blue orange?” Dick repeats. It hits him suddenly how oddly yellow the lighting is, more jaundice than it feels like lights usually are. The difference in the air, again, registers. 

“Yeah, blue orange,” Tim says, sounding just as confused. He points to the dispenser toward the far left. 

Sure enough, in bold, electric font, the words Blue Orange glow above a spinning circle of bright, acidic blue. Huh, Dick thinks, pressing down on the dispenser and watching the syrup saturated ice churn out. Beneath the lights, the color almost looks chartreuse.

“You sure this stuff is edible?” Dick asks, capping the cup and stuffing in two straws. They make their way to the counter. 

“You think this is too sugary?” Tim jokes, and Dick gives him a playful shove. 

They sit on an apartment rooftop in a quiet neighborhood, trading the cup back and forth. Their lips are already blue. The ice sits nicely on Dick’s tongue, considering the summer heat. When an alley cat screeches suddenly below, Tim jumps, and Dick laughs. Tim tugs on his ear. 

“You keep doing that,” Dick says, reaching over to tug at Tim’s earlobe himself. Tim swats his hand away, blush visible even in the dim blue night. “Since when did that become a habit?”

Tim doesn’t respond. Instead, he takes a long draw of the slushie, gazing out toward the distance, where a hazy, yellow glow surrounds the downtown skyscrapers. Dick follows his gaze. It’s a familiar sight, one that makes him feel at home, no matter which cold, dark corner of Gotham he is in. Because it’s so familiar, Dick frowns at the tall, pointed skyscraper just left of the SunTrust building. The building is mostly indiscernible, save for the green lights that circle it’s pyramidal top. 

He glances at Tim, wondering if the boy sees what he sees, but Tim looks content, lips growing bluer by the second. Dick looks back at the building, gut churning sour. He knows for certain the skyscraper was not there before, and even if construction had started the moment Two-Face cracked him over the head with a baseball bat, it couldn't have been built within a week.

III.

Dick does some googling. He jots down an address, calls Jason, and convinces him to get lunch together.

Jason agrees, but begrudgingly so. He shows up twenty minutes late to the brunch place Dick finds, hands deep in the pocket of his jeans. Dick hasn’t seen Jason since that night Jason snuck into his apartment. Dick still isn't sure what that was all about. Jason was gone by morning. 

“So, why are we here?” Jason asks, pulling open the menu and idly scanning its contents. 

“I wanted to check in on you,” Dick says, and Jason gives an adolescent eye-roll.

When the waiter drops by, Dick orders a water and Jason a sweet tea. The waiter returns, drinks in hand. Dick watches as Jason sips from his tea, completely ignoring the slice of lime that bobs among the ice. 

They wind up both ordering waffles and chicken, arguing only a little bit beforehand that they couldn’t both order the same thing. As soon as the waiter sets down their plates, Jason does a quick scan, then swaps their dishes. “He gave you more chicken,” Jason explains. 

They don’t really talk about things. That’s just how their relationship is. Instead, they make fun of each other relentlessly, Dick jabbing at the leather jacket Jason has worn despite the heat, and Jason at the designer sunglasses sitting on Dick’s head. It feels good, so much so that Dick nearly forgot his purpose for this brunch until Jason stands up to leave. 

“Wait,” Dick says, latching his arm out to clasp over Jason’s wrist. “I need to show you something.”

Jason digs his heels in a little, but lets Dick drag him through the summer heat down three blocks until they’re firmly downtown. The traffic is louder there, the sun seemly brighter, having been deflected off multiple glass surfaces and onto the street. Dick keeps a fist clamped around the sleeve of Jason’s jacket the entire time, and they look odd, but Dick doesn’t mind. He can’t let Jason run off. 

He stops in front of the glass Shasha C. Walker building, just an address number up from the SunTrust building. Jason looks at him in confusion as they stop in front of the building. Dick gestures up at it. 

“What is this?” Dick demands. He expects Jason to give in, to crumble, but Jason’s confusion doesn’t falter. 

“It’s, uh, a building,” Jason says. He squints at the sign. “The Sasha C. Walker building, apparently.”

People are weaving past them on the street. 

“Dick,” Jason asks cautiously, as if dealing with a wild animal. “Is something wrong?”

And it’s the unsureness in Jason’s voice that almost brings Dick down. He looks back up at the building. It’s so ordinary, so easy to miss, considering all the other skyscrapers that crowd downtown. For any other Gothamite, even one that has lived in the city all their life, it wouldn’t be crazy to have glimpsed past this one building for so long. But Dick isn’t any Gothamite. He knows the city front and back. 

“It’s just,” Dick begins, “this building is new. It wasn’t here before.”

He doesn’t clarify to Jason what ‘before’ constitutes, but he sees the way Jason stiffens, and pounces on that immediately. 

“Jason,” Dick says, stepping closer to his brother. “This wasn’t here before.”

“Before what,” Jason says, sounding annoyed. His shoulders are tense. “Come on, Dickie. We’re in the way.”

A man’s shoulder hits Dick’s as he passes, but Dick ignores it. 

“This wasn’t here before,” Dick states again. Whatever flash of truth Jason showed earlier is gone. Hidden. “Jason, just—” he isn’t sure what he’s begging for. He tugs on Jason’s arm, and whatever face he must be making softens Jason’s. 

“Dickie,” he says gently. “Let’s go. You need to sit down.”

Jason’s hand curls around his arm, and Dick’s feet stumble along as Jason pulls him forward.

* * *

Instead of the manor, Jason takes him back to a safe house. He sits Dick down on his dust covered couch, pushing a bottle of water into Dick’s hands. They sit in silence, even though there are several things Dick wants to say, like _it wasn’t there before,_ or _a skyscraper can’t be built in a week, not in Gotham._

Dick settles with just one question.

“How long was I out?”

Jason glances at him. He’s taken a seat on the coffee table in front of him, which looked like it could hardly support the books Jason had piled on top of it, much less Jason himself. Jason plays with a fraying patch in his jeans. 

“Jason,” Dick says. Jason lets out a heavy breath.

“Fine, okay. You were out longer.”

Dick holds his breath. 

“How much longer?”

Jason’s eyes drift up to meet his own, and they’re sad. Unbelievably sad, holding a weight which crushes the breath out of Dick’s chest. 

“Close to four months,” Jason says. There’s a quiet between them. The old air conditioning unit that cools Jason’s apartment huffs by the window. 

“Four months,” Dick repeats. Jason nods. “Why did you lie?”

Jason flinches at that. 

“We didn’t want to freak you out,” Jason says. He looks down at his lap. “Two-Face really got you good, and… we really didn’t think you’d make it.”

Dick’s hand drifts up to the stitches. They hardly hurt. Then again, four months is a long time to heal. Suddenly, Jason’s hug makes sense. Tim’s hair. Damian’s distance. 

Jason ducks his head down. 

“Hey,” Dick says, standing up. He kneels in front of Jason, pulling him close until the younger boy’s head hides in the crook of his neck. He knows Jason won’t cry. Nothing makes Jason cry these days — but he wants Jason to know he can if he wants to, and that, if he does, Dick won’t let anyone see. 

He rubs Jason’s back and smells cigarette smoke thick in his hair. Vaguely, Dick recalls Jason telling him he was trying to quit, but if Dick had been out for four months, Dick wouldn’t be surprised if Jason started again. 

It’s only later that night, once he’s driven back to his Bludhaven apartment, that Dick wonders about that date he’d seen on the Batcomputer and how, four months earlier, it would have still been spring, despite Dick’s clear memory of summer rain drenching the Bludhaven streets. In bed, Dick googles the length of time it takes to build a skyscraper. It takes four years.

**EARTH 32**

IV.

Jason scratches at his nicotine patch. He looks down at the three kids standing in the doorway of his safehouse, waiting to be let in.

“You see,” Jason says, gesturing, “when you stand in a row together like that, you look like gremlins.”

Damian scowls and pushes past him. The other two teenagers follow. 

“Hey,” Jason says, eyeing Cass’s expensive looking boots. “Shoes off, all of you.”

They all ignore him. Jason collapses back onto his dust covered couch, thumbing open his book where he left it. He figures that if his siblings are here, they have something to say. Their current rummaging through Jason’s kitchen for junk food is merely their attempt to buy time. Toughen up. If he were Dick, he’d probably join them in the kitchen and nicely pry out their secrets with candy and hugs, but he’s Jason, and Jason plans to let them figure themselves out. 

Finally, it’s Cass that emerges from the kitchen, a honey bun he hadn’t even known existed unwrapped in her hands. She takes a bite. 

“Dick’s not here,” she says. Tim and Damian pop out of the doorway as well, looking back and forth between them. 

“Did you think he’d be here?” Jason asks. Cass shrugs. She plops down on the end of the couch, where a throw blanket has been crammed into the cushions. Cass takes it out, holding it in front of her. The fabric is light pink and decorated with small, blue robins. 

“He’s nowhere else,” she says. 

“His apartment?” Jason asks, frowning when Cass elects to stuff the blanket back into the cushions. Sometimes, he doesn’t understand her. 

“We checked,” Tim chimes in. “He’s not there either.”

“Huh,” Jason says, flipping a page of his book. He blinks when the book is ripped out of his hands. 

“Pay attention, Todd. Have you seen Grayson or not?” Damian demands. 

“That’s a vintage copy, you know,” Jason lies. Damian hesitates, setting Jason’s book onto the coffee table, which wobbles precariously under the sheer number of books scattered across it. Then Damian crosses his arms. 

“Where is Grayson,” Damian demands. Jason sneers up at the kid. 

“I don’t know, running away from you, perhaps.”

Tim snorts. 

“I am serious, Todd,” Damian says. He unsheathes a throwing knife out of thin air, holding it in front of Jason’s face. Jason raises an eyebrow. “Where is he?”

“Okay, first of all,” Jason says, “don’t point that thing at me. Secondly, I don’t know. I keep a healthy distance from him, unlike some people.”

Damian growls. 

“Come on,” Cass says, eyeing Jason. “He doesn’t know.”

Damian stares at him a bit longer, but tears away, convinced by his sister. 

“I’ll be back, Todd,” Damian says, Tim dragging him out of the apartment. Jason sighs, flopping back down onto his couch.

“Sure thing, kid.”

* * *

It’s not that Jason cares about going to ‘family dinner’, as everyone calls it. It’s just that, every week, Dick sends Jason a text asking if he wants to go. On the occasions Jason says yes, Dick drops by and picks him up, and they enter the house together, relieving Jason of the awkwardness he gets whenever he’s at the manor on his own. 

But this week, there’s no text. As much as Jason hates to admit, he’s checked his phone throughout the entire day. But nothing. Briefly, he wonders if he’s done something to piss Dick off. Even so, Dick still invites him after a fight, even though Jason always turns him down then. 

Suddenly, the gremlins’ visit becomes a lot more concerning. 

He tells himself to chill out, then takes his bike and heads to Wayne Manor. It’s summer, the sky beyond the house a late evening pink. From outside the gates, Jason can just make out a few lights on: Cass’s room, the library, and the dining room. In the driveway, Dick’s car is missing. 

There are, of course, several explanations as to why. Dick could’ve been driven by Alfred. Dick could’ve spent the weekend there and moved his car to the garage. For all Jason knows, Dick could’ve totaled his car. 

He stands there on his bike for a second, lulled by the heavy, humid air and steady croak of crickets. The manor almost appears normal. Just any family’s house. 

Jason turns away, kicking back up his bike. He zooms off onto the road back toward his safehouse.


	2. two

**EARTH 27**

V. 

Cassandra is in town, but Dick still hasn’t seen her yet. Suddenly, Jason wants to take him out for pizza, or Tim wants him to drive him downtown for the day. He still hasn’t seen his sister, despite her insistent texts that they meet up.

Finally, three days after Cass’s arrival, Dick drives down to Gotham unprompted. He parks his car in the driveway and heads in through the garden door. As soon as he steps in, he hears the sound of laughter. Tim. 

He follows it to the sun room, where Tim and Cass are laid out on the floor, a game of Monopoly spread out between them. He sees Tim has selected the ship, Cass the wheelbarrow. 

They sense him before he announces himself. A sudden look of fear crosses Tim’s face as Cass springs up and launches herself at him. 

“Oof,” Dick says, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m still in recovery, you know.”

Cass pulls away, takes one glance at him, then slaps him on the shoulder. 

“You’re fine,” she says. Dick reaches out to ruffle her short hair. Cass ducks out of his grasp with a lighthearted huff. 

Monopoly board forgotten, they head to the kitchen. Sunlight slices across the countertops through the kitchen blinds. Alfred is nowhere to be seen. Cookies sit on a plate on the counter, packaged beneath Saran wrap. Cass leaps onto the counter, tearing the wrap of the plate and carefully selecting the first cookie. She passes the plate to Dick. 

“Is it just me,” Dick says, plucking out a cookie, “or has Alfred been acting off?”

Tim tugs at his ear. 

“What do you mean,” Cass asks. Her legs kick against the countertops. 

“I mean, he’s acting different,” Dick says. _Cold_ is the word he wants to use. 

“Is he?” Cass asks, cocking her head.

“He’s just tired,” Tim interjects, tugging at his ear again. “He was stressed out while you were unconscious.”

Dick frowns. His cookie sits dry on his tongue. 

“And what about Damian? Or Jason?” Dick asks. He watches Tim’s shoulders gradually hitch closer to his ears. Cass is watching him too, her eyes narrowed as she chews slower. 

“What about them?” Tim asks. Dick sits himself up onto the countertop too. 

“They’ve been off too,” Dick says, pressing forward. “Damian’s avoiding me like the plague, and Jason—” Dick halts, not wanting to share Jason’s fragile moments. He wets his lips. “And Jason’s all strung up around Bruce.”

“Aren’t they always,” Tim says casually. 

“Yes,” Dick says, watching Tim carefully. “But this is different.”

Tim tugs at his ear. 

“They fought while you were out. Damian doesn’t like it when they fight. End of story,” Tim says. Now Cass is staring at them blatantly. She leaps off the counter, brushing crumbs off her shirt. 

“Let’s go do something fun,” she says.

* * *

Tim insists on a movie, but Cass takes them down to the cave. She kicks out the sparring mats and starts wrapping her hands. 

“Do we have to?” Tim asks. “It’s the middle of the day.”

“I want to,” Cass says. “Haven’t for too long.”

Tim glances at Dick. 

“You should probably just watch,” Tim says. “Y’know. Cause your head.”

Dick touches the stitches. He gives Tim a small smile. 

“It’s okay. I think I’ll be fine.”

And they spar. With patrol being slow recently, Dick feels more free than he has in weeks. They take turns sparring and resting, and by the end, when their limbs are all loose, they collapse on top of each other on the mats. Dick notices Tim is laughing freely, tension gone, and smiles a little to himself. 

It’s only later, upstairs, that Cass pulls him aside. 

“You’re injured,” she says. Dick raises an eyebrow. 

“Well, I was, but not anymore,” Dick says. Cass shakes her head, pointing to his right knee. 

“Bends different.”

Dick pauses. He’s always been aware of his right knee. It’d been broken back when he was eleven on a mission when he’d been held hostage. His teammates didn’t find him until days later. The knee never quite healed right. But Cass knew that. Or, at least she knew that his knee was always like that. 

“It’s always been like that,” Dick says. “Badly healed injury.”

Cass studies him then, head cocked. Dick gives her a wry smile and drapes his arm over her shoulder. 

“Come on, we still have all weekend together. We’ve got better things to do.”

VI. 

The weekend after Cassandra’s visit, Dick drags Damian to the mall. The eleven year old stares out the window the entire drive, eyes narrowing each time a block of sun fills their car.

“So,” Dick says, once they’ve parked in the parking garage. “I was thinking I could take you to the game store.”

Damian doesn’t respond, and follows Dick silently as they enter through the double doors connecting the mall and the garage. 

“There was that game you wanted to buy, wasn’t there?” Dick continues. “I figured we could drop by and get it, maybe get some food, then play it together tonight?”

Damian still doesn’t answer, and when Dick looks down, he realizes in alarm that Damian is crying. 

“Woah, woah, what’s wrong?” Dick asks. He glances around, and only a few people passing by give lingering stares. Dick grabs ahold of Damian’s hand and guides him toward a quiet corridor of the mall, where nothing accompanies them other than a bench and two pots of fake flowers. 

“Come on, you can talk to me,” Dick says gently, guiding Damian to the bench. Damian wipes furiously at his tears, his cheeks red, his face scowling, but he sits. Dick gives him a moment to breathe, then reaches out to brush away Damian’s tears with a thumb. Damian jerks his head away. 

“I don’t want to be here,” Damian grinds out. He doesn’t meet Dick’s eyes. 

“That’s okay, we can leave,” Dick says, despite feeling disappointed. He’d been looking forward to spending the day with Damian. “Can I ask what’s upset you?”

Damian doesn’t say anything, and Dick can tell he’s trying to stomach his sobs. 

“Does this have anything to do with the four months I was out?” Dick asks. Damian’s eyes shoot up. “Yeah, Jason told me,” Dick explains, smiling sheepishly. “Things just weren’t adding up.”

Damian looks away again. The sound of the mall is distant. Dick lets Damian process whatever that’s going through his mind and occupies his own time by dabbing away tears on Damian’s chin with the hem of his sleeve. 

“I miss… you,” Damian finally says. It’s quiet, and Dick just barely catches it. Dick’s breath leaves his chest. 

“I’m sorry I worried you, kiddo,” Dick says. “But I’m here now, and I promise I’ll try my best to stick by your side, alright?”

Damian looks at him.

“What if you fail?” Damian asks, voice small. Dick’s chest aches. Because Damian is right. One day, Dick won’t be there. 

“I’ll try my best not to,” Dick says, “but if I do, you have so many people who care about you. Like your Dad, like Alfred, like Tim, Cass, Steph, Jason,” Dick lists, “Babs, Kate, your friends…”

It says something about the depth of Damian’s question that he doesn’t make a retort about his siblings and friends.

“But right now, I’m here, and we’re together, so let’s make the most of it,” Dick says. He waits for Damian to say something, but instead, Damian just nudges himself into Dick’s arms, and Dick holds him. 

“You’re back for good?” Damian asks, and there’s something in the boy’s voice that unsettles Dick, sending a cold shudder down his spine.

“You bet,” Dick says.

* * *

It’s Friday, so Dick sends a text over to Jason, asking him if he wants to go to family dinner. While most weeks Dick likes to give Jason his space, he’s still feeling unsteady about the odd tension between Jason and Bruce, and opts to drive down to Jason’s apartment from Bludhaven when Jason doesn’t respond to his text. 

He finds Jason in bed with a laptop nursing a box of low-sugar apple juice. Jason hardly looks up, as though expecting his intrusion. 

“I’m not going,” Jason states. Dick flops down onto the mattress beside him. 

“What if I beg.”

“You’re not going to.”

“ _Please_ , Jay?”

Jason snorts, then promptly chokes on his apple juice. Dick laughs, shaking the mattress. He earns a smack on the shoulder. 

“I already have dinner plans,” Jason says, shutting his laptop and kicking it further down the bed. 

“Oh yeah, what?” 

“Take out. Cheap wine. It’s gonna be great.”

Dick huffs, then turns on his side, giving Jason his biggest, roundest eyes. 

“Please, Jay, for me?”

Usually that earns him a kick to the side, but Jason’s expression falters a bit, and he schools his face into a scowl. 

“Fine. Whatever. But I’m leaving right after, and you’re driving me back.”

Dick loiters in Jason’s apartment until it’s time to drive over. Jason sits in the passenger’s seat with his arms crossed like a teenager’s the entire time. He eyes Jason’s jittery leg that still shakes the car after Dick puts it into park on the manor driveway. The dining room light is on, as well as the light in Cass’s room and the library. 

The sky has taken on an odd, bruised purple hue in the distance, while the sky overhead is still blue. The car insulates them from the summer heat outside. 

“I know we just got here, but I can turn back,” Dick says. Jason lets out a heavy exhale, eyes scanning up the manor. 

“No, I’m good,” Jason says. “But you go in first.”

Inside the manor, Jason sticks close behind him. Warm, savory air wafts from the kitchen, seeming to have drawn out Tim, Cass, and Damian, who loiter in the kitchen, which Alfred takes in stride. Upon spotting Jason, Alfred’s face melts into something warm, and even Tim and Cass look content. 

Dinner goes without a hitch. Bruce is civil, albeit awkward, asking Jason how he is. Tim eats more than he usually does. Damian kicks his legs out beneath the kitchen table playfully, gently hitting Dick’s knees. Even Alfred cracks a smile at him when Dick recites a bad joke. 

And… it all feels so perfect. 

He drives Jason back as he promised, the sky dark by the time he stops in front of Jason’s apartment. He waits for Jason to get out of the car, but Jason lingers. 

“Thanks for inviting me. To — you know,” Jason says awkwardly. Dick giggles at his awkwardness, and Jason elbows him. “Come on, I’m trying to be sappy here, like you always want me to be,” Jason says. 

“I’m just teasing you, Jay,” Dick says. “It’s my prerogative.”

“Yeah, but seriously,” Jason says. For a second, it looks like he’s genuinely shy, which he rarely is around Dick. Around anyone, really. “Like, you’re not perfect, but… I’m glad you’re here.” 

Jason seems to force the words out with difficulty. Dick isn’t laughing anymore. Instead, he’s thinking back to Damian’s outburst of tears at the mall. He resists touching his stitches, but once again, he wonders how bad he must’ve been after Two-Face had been through with him. 

“You know I love you, Jay,” Dick says, despite knowing Jason will make fun of him for it later, despite the fact it leaves them both feeling awkward, and despite the fact Jason might one day throw this moment back at him with the intent to hurt. But it’s worth it. It’s something he tells Tim, Cass, and Damian without restraint. It’s a lot easier to tell them too, because they’re his kid siblings. They’ll squirm, blush, and Dick can brush it off with a tossle of their hair. But Jason has always been closer to age to him, known an earlier time which now seems precious and rare. Days when Bruce’s most serious was not as serious, when Gotham seemed less dangerous. It feels almost like a secret kept between them. A secret which keeps them together despite all the times they’ve failed each other. It’s an acknowledgement that, at the very least, they’ve both hurt together and, to some certain extent, understand each other because of that. Brotherhood is a strange bond, inexplicable most of the time and usually rough and hurtful, but, occasionally, it can be soft and warm, nurturing and gentle. 

“You’re a fucking sap, you know that?” Jason says in response, but his voice is thick with emotion, and Dick lets him go off into the night.

* * *

And days pass like that. Life returns to normal. Fridays are family dinner nights. Saturdays mean hanging out with Tim, Cass and Damian. Sundays are just for Jason. Everything is right.

Then Dick spots a newspaper headline on the Gotham Streets: TWO-FACE ESCAPES ARKHAM ONE YEAR INTO SENTENCE.

**Earth 32**

VII.

A second week passes with no contact with Dick. Then a third week. In total, including the week Jason spent undercover prior to his three siblings storming into his apartment, it’s been four weeks since Jason has seen his brother.

He is somewhat concerned. 

While Dick has one hell of a temper, he doesn’t quite hold grudges, save with Bruce, so Jason knows Dick isn’t avoiding him because Jason did something to piss him off. It’s also clear that _no one_ knows where Dick is, judging by his siblings’ visit and an awkward rooftop encounter with Bruce, in which Bruce demanded to know if he had done something to Dick. 

Because of said encounter, Jason has been avoiding the bats. He keeps to himself on patrol, which means lingering towards the Gotham bay, where the salinity of the air usually drives Tim and Damian’s more delicate sensibilities away. 

At the start of the fourth week, Jason breaks into Dick’s apartment, snapping on a pair of nitrile gloves beforehand and taking with him a role of packing tape and a box of plastic bags. 

He goes during the daytime, easily entering with a spare key Dick had given him and which Jason took nearly an hour to find, since he always made an effort to toss the key after each argument with Dick. Inside, the apartment is quiet. The curtains are drawn shut, afternoon sunlight seeping through nonetheless, illuminating the dust suspended in the air.

The apartment smells vaguely of baking soda. A basket of half folded laundry sits on the couch. Mail overflows on the kitchen counter. In the sink, there’s two cups. If it wasn’t for the layer of dust, Jason would have thought Dick had simply left for the grocery store, intending to return shortly. Instead, it looks like a life interrupted — like Dick left with the intention to return, but never did. 

Exhausted, he flops on Dick’s bed a bit. The ceiling fan gazes back down at him, it’s carvings appearing like taunting eyes. An old hoodie has been jammed into the space between the mattress and the wall — Dick’s Hudson University sweatshirt, Jason realizes when he tugs it out. 

He tucks it under his arm, intending to steal it. 

After two hours, Jason decides nothing in the apartment looks suspicious. He does take fingerprints from the doorknobs and windows, finding along the way a t-shirt he had been looking for for some time. He starts to take it — it doesn’t fit Dick anyway — but pauses, and leaves it be. He supposes if he’s taking the Hudson University hoodie, then he might as well let it be a fair trade. 

It comforts him too, knowing that there’s something of his there, even if it’s something as inconsequential as a shirt. Perhaps it’s just the competitive part of him; Damian’s pictures cover the fridge, Tim’s disturbing little post-it note doodles as well. From Cass’s pottery phase, a painted bowl sits on Dick’s counter, filled with flowers made out of colored paper. 

Stepping back outside, the bold heat sends shudders along Jason’s arms.

* * *

It takes three days to fully process the finger prints. When they do, Jason stares at the results in befuddlement. 

They’re his own.


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your lovely comments!

**EARTH 27**

VIII.

Dick cracks into the Arkham database the next day, searching through the logs for Harvey Dent’s most recent stay. It lists his entry date as being a little over a year ago — far before Dick was supposedly captured by him.

His next stop is the Sasha C. Walker building. Unlike before, he enters the building. It’s largely office space, the main floor a glassy, modern lobby. People stare at him — he’s out of place in his t-shirt and jeans — but he pays them no mind. He reads the bronze plaque hoisted on the wall. It lists the building as having been constructed ten years ago. 

Feeling dizzy, Dick wanders down to a cafe he hadn’t heard of before. He takes a seat outdoors, despite the heat, and orders a water with a lemon. The waiter gives him an odd look. When Dick looks around, he realizes all the ice teas and waters are filled with limes. 

He leaves without his water. 

Fifteen minutes later, Dick finds himself hyperventilating in his car in front of a parking meter. Gotham three o’clock traffic slugs past him. His phone sits on the dashboard, and Dick itches to call someone. Bruce. Jason. Tim.

_But they’re in on it,_ Dick’s brain whispers. It’s a cold, isolating thought. Suddenly, the street in front of him looks foreign. The sky’s blue too dense. The sun more sepia than orange, boring harshly down onto his skin, causing it to ache. 

_No, you’re just paranoid,_ Dick thinks, hands gripping the steering wheel. _Two-Face messed you up. Paranoia can happen after brain injury. It’s in your head. It’s the meds. Everything is normal._

But, also — _blue orange is_ not _a flavor._

And the air. The air is different. 

He pulls out of the parking spot, making two laps around downtown. It’s something he would never do, the slow slog of traffic usually deterring Dick from downtown in general, but he doesn’t have it in him to drive back to Bludhaven, and he can’t sit still. He takes the time to properly observe the buildings he passes. Most of them are familiar. But every two or three shops along the road, there’s a blip. An anomaly. Restaurant chains that Dick has never heard of before. Advertisements for products that don't exist. 

After the second lap, he drives to the public library, where he uses the computer to google Richard Grayson. A couple of gossip articles pop up. No mention of anything abnormal. 

His hand creeps up to the stitches in the back of his head. 

By the time he exits the library, the sky is tamer, the sun beginning to return to the horizon. The humidity feels dull against his skin. After getting in his car, he sits there for a moment. He could go home. Sleep on it. Wake up, with everything hopefully back to normal. A clearer head. 

Instead, he drives to Jason’s. 

He parks the car out front, taking in the inconspicuous nature of the apartment complex before him. Red brick. Rusting fire escape. He goes up to Jason’s top floor apartment via the fire escape, slinking in through Jason’s window, just as Jason always does at his place. 

Inside, the apartment is calm. Most things are modest and organized, save for the towers of books on the coffee table. He hears humming in the kitchen, and watches as Jason emerges from the doorway, a honey bun in hand, chewing. He’s looking down at his phone and jumps when he suddenly spots Dick.

“Jesus fuck, man,” Jason curses through a full mouth. “What happened to knocking?”

Dick studies him. He looks just like Jason. Just like his brother. From the suspicious fox-like set to his eyes to the slight crookedness in his nose, the hint of orange in the roots of his hair and the freckles that scatter across his cheekbones and run down the back of his neck. But not everything can be the same.

“Dickie?” Jason asks, unnerved by Dick’s lack of response. Dick steps forward. 

“Do you still have that scar on your elbow? The one from when I snuck you out to snowboard even though school hadn’t let out yet?”

Jason stares at him. 

“Yeah, of course,” Jason said. “What’s going on, Dick? What the hell are you doing here?”

Dick takes another step closer.

“Can I see it?” Dick asks. Jason’s eyebrows pop up.

“ _What?_ ”

“Can I see it. The scar,” Dick says. Jason stands very still. His face suddenly takes on a scowl.

“What the hell, Dickie? You randomly storm in here to see a scar?” Jason says. 

“Show it to me,” Dick demands. 

“What the fuck? No,” Jason says. Dick closes his eyes, reigning in his patience. 

“Then tell me,” Dick says, “how did you get that scar?”

Jason hesitates. 

“I fell,” he says, and it’s the logical answer — except Dick had guided him every step along the way during that snowboarding trip, making sure Jason padded himself with protection. It was a perfect trip. No one fell, no one got angry. It was one of their secret moments, a trip not even Bruce knew about, the man having been out of the country for a business meeting. Dick knows he’s not Jason’s favorite person in the world, but he also knows that Jason wouldn’t just forget that ski trip. 

Jason’s face slowly morphs from hesitation to confusion to realization then panic. 

“Dick, it’s not what you think,” Jason says, eyes wild. 

“Oh yeah?” Dick says, not caring as Jason approaches. “Then why the hell does the Arkham database say Two Face has been in custody for over a year? Why the hell has that building been downtown for ten years? What the _hell_ is blue orange?”

Jason tackles him to the ground. Dick’s head hits the floor with a thud, but he doesn’t black out. Instead, he knees Jason in the gut, and Jason topples to the side. Dick pulls himself up, ready to dart back out the window, but Jason grabs him by the ankle, dragging him down. 

“Fucking let _go,_ ” Dick seethes as Jason pins him down. He manages to roll them over a few times, but Jason keeps landing on top. It amazes Dick that for all the differences in whatever reality he’s in, Jason is still a brick wall of a man. 

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” he hears Jason curse, and his brother sounds truly frantic, enough so that Dick nearly stops struggling, instinct kicking into comfort his brother. But this isn’t his brother, Dick reminds himself. He might be somebody’s brother, but he’s not Dick’s. 

Dick frees a knee, knocking the breath out of Jason with a jab to his stomach. He scampers up just a bit until Jason knocks him over onto his stomach, his grip painfully tight around his arms.

“Just stop _moving!_ ” Jason shouts, and though Dick can’t see his face, his cheek still pressed into the carpet, he can picture the toxic green swirling into Jason’s eyes. Dick stills. He feels the hand Jason has pressing between his shoulder blades tremble. 

“You’re not going to hurt me,” Dick says, even though he doesn’t know. This isn’t _his_ Jason. Even with his own Jason, things are questionable when Jason starts to panic. 

“I’ll knock you out,” Jason says. The hand on his back suddenly lets up, a knee taking its place, and Dick hears the sound of duct tape. It wraps around his wrists, effectively securing his hands behind his back. 

“Jason, what are you doing,” Dick demands, but Jason keeps wrapping, eventually forcing together his ankles as well. 

“You can’t let them know,” Jason murmurs, tossing the duct tape away and standing up. He flips Dick over, and Dick stares up at Jason with big eyes. 

“Why the fuck did you have to go digging,” Jason says, the words coming out almost a whine. “Everything could have been fine, everything _was_ fine!”

Dick flinches as Jason’s volume expands. Jason suddenly walks out of his vision, and Dick hears quiet muttering. Dick tries to keep calm. He tests the strength of the duct tape. 

The tape doesn’t budge. There’s nothing about it to pick, nothing to unknot. He doesn’t have anything sharp around either. 

To better examine the tape, Dick rotates his arms over his head and to his front. He hears Jason gag. 

“Jesus, Dick, don't do that,” Jason says, and it’s a strange moment of normality — Jason complaining about his boneless flexibility — that Dick nearly forgets he’s tied up on the living room floor of someone who looks like his brother.

“Then let me go,” Dick says. 

“You think I don’t want to?” Jason shoots back. Dick watches him pace, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He eventually wanders back, kneeling behind Dick’s head and grasping Dick beneath the armpits. Jason starts dragging him backwards. 

“So, what, now I’m your hostage?” Dick says bitterly. He starts writhing purposefully, and Jason drops him with a scowl. Dick’s head hits the floor. 

“Jesus,” Dick says, eyes shut tight as dull aches wash over his head. 

“Stop moving,” Jason says, and starts dragging him again. 

They wind up in Jason’s bedroom. Dick watches as Jason scans around, body tense, before finally dragging Dick towards a closet with accordion doors. 

“You are fucking kidding me,” Dick says as Jason opens the closet. Sure enough, Jason has a metal pike installed in there, to which he ties Dick with a chain lock. Dick stares at Jason in disbelief. 

“You’re not closing the door, are you?” Dick asks. A tremor runs across Jason’s face. He looks scared more than anything, and something in Dick aches in return. 

“I need to think,” Jason says, then draws shut the closet doors.

* * *

He considers shouting for help. Jason has neighbors. The only problem is that Dick doesn’t know anything about these neighbors — if they will give a shit, if they’re home — and Dick doesn’t know how Jason will react. _His_ Jason, the one that Dick prays is safe and not wrapped up in some interdimensional wormhole shit, would get annoyed and duct tape his mouth, most likely. He’s seen Jason do that to many criminals before with utter zeal. 

The closet is small, forcing Dick to keep his knees drawn close to his chest. Clothes hang above him, a few longer garments soft against the back of his head. The last of daylight slants through the slits in the door, painting stripes on Dick’s skin. The worst part of it all is that the closet smells like Jason — like cigarette smoke, cheap deodorant, and the same kind of landry detergent Alfred likes to use back home. The same kind Dick used to wash his clothes with the Titans and in college because he missed the manor. 

Sometime around an hour later, Jason opens the door.

“Done thinking?” Dick asks, glaring. Jason has an impassive look on his face. 

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” Jason asks. Dick hesitates. 

“Yes.”

Dick holds still as Jason unlocks him. He takes awkward shuffling steps with his feet taped close together. At the door, Jason clears his throat. 

“There’s no windows in there,” Jason says. “No razor, no nothing, so don’t do something stupid.”

“You’re not coming?” Dick challenges. “How am I supposed to do anything?”

Jason lets out an aggravated huff. 

“You’re flexible. Figure it out.”

He shoves Dick in and closes the door behind him. 

Despite Jason’s words, Dick does pry around, the movements stilted from his bindings. True to his words, Jason has nothing more than a toothbrush sitting in a cup and some sort of dermatologist approved soap bar. Dick bangs on the bathroom door with his shoulder when he’s done. 

Jason leads him back to the closet, locking him in place again. 

“How long are you going to keep me in here?” Dick asks quietly. Jason finishes snapping on the locks and stands back, still on his knees. 

“I don’t know,” Jason admits. He looks down at his lap. “Until I figure out what to do.”

“Jason,” Dick says. “What’s going on?”

And Jason fixes him with somber eyes. There’s a grief in there that Dick registers, but can’t quite pinpoint. Jason stands back up. 

“I’ll leave the door open,” he says, and leaves.

**EARTH 32**

IX.

Jason returns to Dick’s apartment, this time armed with two times as many plastic bags. He gets to work.

No one in the family has contacted him yet, not since Jason started avoiding Bruce, but he knows they’ve been in Dick’s apartment as well. There’s minor shuffling of boxes. A few knick knacks rearranged. Much to Jason’s annoyance, someone took out the trash and emptied the fridge. 

Jason lifts fingerprints again, this time from the tables, the chairs, the nightstand. He bags what looks like Dick’s most recent clothing and scans the floors for footprints. He photographs a scuff in the kitchen hardwood. 

He returns to his apartment, backpack loaded full. 

He prepares all the evidence for testing, then sorts through his kitchen cabinets for dinner. There’s a taco mix in his drawer, a couple of ice cream wafer cones in a box. His fridge is stocked with a few vegetables and eggs. 

He orders take out. 

It hits him in the middle of his third bite that it’s family dinner night. He feels a strange anger simmer in his chest, an anger directed at Dick. Guilt washes over immediately, but Jason can’t help but feel resentment that finally, when Jason is starting to feel more normal coming around the manor whenever he pleases, Dick up and disappears. If it turns out Dick left for some undercover mission without telling anyone, Jason will punch him in the face. If Dick got captured during a mission because he didn’t ask for backup, Jason will let him heal, _then_ punch him in the face. 

Jason scratches at his nicotine patch. 

It isn’t until three days later that Jason has all the results from his collected evidence. There aren’t any new prints, and most of the hair samples are Dick’s own. There is nothing noteworthy. Jason slams the lid of his laptop.


	4. four

**EARTH 27**

X.

Jason sleeps on the couch that night rather than his own bedroom. Dick supposes that is to give them both space.

He hears Jason’s snores travel down the hall. It is, oddly enough, a comforting sound, and Dick manages to doze off within two hours. 

The next morning, he wakes with an ache in his neck and Jason standing before him, holding out a water and a granola bar. Dick turns them down. 

“You need to eat, Dick,” Jason says, and it’s strange hearing those words from Jason when Dick knows it’s not really Jason.

“Why do you care,” Dick says. Jason scowls. 

“I fucking care, you dickhead.”

“Then why am I in here?”

Jason takes a calming breath, eyes closed. 

“I can’t let you out until I know you won’t tell anyone.”

“Tell anyone _what,_ ” Dick says imploringly. “What is going on Jason? Why are you doing this?”

“I’m trying to help you,” Jason says, and Dick laughs bitterly. Something in Jason’s face shuts down at that, and the man stands, slamming close the closet doors behind him.

*

Dick doesn’t see Jason until hours later, during which Dick’s stomach growls profusely. This time, Dick accepts the food. They sit across from each other silently, eyes occasionally drifting toward the other, examining almost scientifically. Dick tries to find differences in Jason, but the man looks nearly identical to his brother. He does find a mole at the crook of Jason’s elbow, but he isn’t sure whether his own Jason has a mole there anyhow.

When Dick finishes with the granola bar, Jason leaves, closing the doors behind him.

*

That night, Jason doesn’t sleep until early morning. Dick knows, because he can hear Jason pacing in the living room, then the kitchen. He mutters quietly to himself. Dick doesn’t sleep either that night.

*

The next morning, Jason opens the closet doors gently. His eyes are bruised, his cheeks red and rubbed raw.

“Oh, Little wing,” Dick says without meaning to. “Come here.”

And Jason does. He curls himself around Dick, and Dick feels him rest his ear above Dick’s heart. Dick can’t do anything with his own hands, but he does rest his cheek against Jason’s hair. The sun through Jason’s bedroom window is bright, hitting Dick’s eyes straight on without Jason’s figure looming over the closet to block it, so Dick closes his eyes. 

It shows that neither of them got any sleep the night before when they both fall asleep just like that. Dick wakes second to find Jason staring at him, studying him again. Searching for the differences. Feeling both warmth and discomfort when there are none. 

“You’re just like him,” Jason says. _But I’m not him,_ Dick wants to say. 

“Where is he,” Dick asks instead. There’s a long pause before Jason answers. 

“Gone,” Jason says. “Dead.”

“For good?” Dick asks.

“For good,” Jason repeats quietly. 

“Why am I here?” Dick asks. Jason’s jaw moves minutely as he chews the inside of his cheek. 

“We need you,” Jason says. 

“But I have my own Jason too,” Dick says softly. “He needs me too.”

Jason ducks his head. 

“You don’t understand,” Jason says. “You don’t understand how bad it is. How bad everyone was. Tim, Damian… I can’t see them like that.”

Dick remembers the sound of Bruce’s fist connecting with his jaw, how the sound struck him even before the pain. How the pain melted in afterward, conjuring the deep ache that had been coming alive in his chest ever since seeing the word _deceased_ next to Jason’s name.

“I understand,” Dick says. “I really do.”

“Then you know nothing is right until it’s fixed,” Jason says. “You know you’ll do anything to fix it.” And Dick understands what he means, because even though Dick knows Jason hates the Lazarus pit, Dick wouldn’t wish for it to happen any other way. He wanted Jason back despite Jason’s suffering. He’s selfish. 

“What happened?” Dick asks. Jason looks down at his hands.

“It wasn’t Two-Face,” Jason says first. “He was in Arkham. But… we don’t know who it was. _I_ don’t know who it was. But I found you. You had gone missing for four months. No one knew a thing.”

Jason paused. He closed his eyes. He took a breath. 

“I found you in a shed. One of those way out past city limits. You weren’t even in your gear. I thought… I thought you were still alive at first, and I got all excited, cause you were finally back, and things could return to normal. Tim wouldn’t be depressed, Cass would visit, Damian wouldn’t close off, Bruce would… Bruce would be _happy._ ”

Dick hears the tremor in that word. 

“But then I got closer, and I realized you were gone. And I can’t believe I didn’t see it immediately, because —” Jason’s closed eyes squeeze even tighter “-- they had done horrible things to you, and you were clearly gone.”

Jason stops, his eyes not opening. Dick knows what he’s seeing.

“It had already been four months without you, four _horrible_ months, and I couldn’t imagine those four months becoming the rest of our lives. So I didn’t tell anyone. Tim and Damian found out eventually. I — they knew I was hiding something, and I couldn’t keep a secret from them. They — they got even worse. I was scared for them. Scared for Tim especially. You know how he gets. So I…”

Dick stares at Jason in understanding.

“You took me,” Dick finishes. Jason winces at the words. 

“We need you,” Jason says. 

Dick thinks back to Tim’s panic, Damian’s reluctance.

“Tim got around to it,” Jason said. “Damian, he — he’s getting around to it. Cass doesn’t know, but I think Cass is suspicious.” Jason bites his lip. “Bruce doesn’t know. He can’t know.”

“Alfred knows,” Dick adds. Jason nods solemnly. His head suddenly snaps up, his eyes looking at Dick imploringly. 

“Don’t you see, Dick? We need you here. Right after you got back, everyone started getting better. Everything was back to normal. We _need_ you, Dick, so you can’t tell _anybody_. You need to act normal.”

Dick leans away from Jason, whose stare seems to settle bricks on his chest. 

“Jason, I’m not him,” Dick says. 

“But you can be,” Jason replies. Dick searches Jason’s eyes. There’s desperation there. Hope. Guilt. Fear. They are his brother’s eyes. 

The sunlight outside Jason’s window flares brightly for a moment — the cloud blocking it must have moved on. Dick swallows a lump in his throat. 

“Jason,” he says slowly. “Where is the body?”

**EARTH 32**

XI.

It’s by pure chance that Jason finds the grave in the woods outside Gotham’s old fairgrounds. The fairgrounds are occupied by a carnival for the summer, the naked incandescent bulbs blank and the gates closed until sundown. He’s hit a dead end on finding his brother, and had hoped to clear his mind by completing a fairly simple scout of the new carnival, after catching word of their suspicious connections to a certain Gotham drug lord.

He scouts from the woods, watching as the carnival members set up for the night. Booths replace prize dolls. Rides wipe down the seats. Jason has his eyes trained on a man lugging large, heavy burlap sacks when he trips over the grave. 

The grave is relatively new. Jason realizes that immediately. Hastily dug, and not likely six feet, though it doesn’t look shallow. There is, oddly enough, a small marker at the head of the grave. A small, round, painted stone. Jason turns it over in his hands. It’s only when his eyes orient the blue streak across the stone to be a bird that Jason’s blood runs cold. 

“No, no,” Jason murmurs. Thoughtlessly, he begins pawing through the dirt with his hands. When the earth gets too stiff, he swipes a shovel from the carnival’s shed and digs.

At the bottom is a body zipped into a blue, tarp bag, the bag further wrapped in a sheet. _Soft sheets_ , Jason thinks absently. _Colorful, soft sheets_. With trembling hands, he hefts the body out of the grave. The bag is opaque, but thin. He feels bones through the bag, and he knows. His fist curls around the edge of the cloth. He doesn’t dare look further, to get definitive proof. He already knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit short, but hopefully fun. 
> 
> If you're looking for more Dick and Jason angst, check out my new fic, [What the Living Do](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25216984), which may or may not be the reason this chapter took a while to come out :)


	5. five

**EARTH 32**

XII.

It’s family dinner night. 

The thought repeats in Jason’s head over and over again.  _ It’s family dinner night. It’s family dinner night. It’s family dinner night _ .

Except there’s a body in the backseat of his car. No, not just a body — it’s his  _ brother. _ His brother is in the backseat. 

_ It’s family dinner night. It’s family dinner night. It’s family dinner night. _

Above the repetitive mantra, Jason idly wonders how Dick felt when he discovered that Jason was dead. Whether he screamed or cried, or if he was able to summon any expression at all. 

_ It’s family dinner night. It’s family dinner night —  _ I’ll never see him again  _ — It’s family dinner night. _

He races through the outskirts as the Gotham sky breaks open into a sunset. He’s afraid to look in the rearview mirror, even though it’s just a body bag. A body bag wrapped in colorful sheets.  _ Light pink sheets stitched with small, blue robins. _

He doesn’t know why he’s afraid. His brother isn’t going to suddenly climb out of the bag. If he did, Jason should be thankful anyway. Even if he has to look at the decomposed, possibly mutilated body of his brother. 

A slight bump in the road causes a backseat seatbelt to smack against the window. Jason cries out, heart suddenly leaping in his chest. The cry lodges in his throat. His heart, once started, won’t stop thudding. He hears it in his ears. 

The road is empty, and he hits the breaks. The tires screech, audible from the inside of the car. The body in the backseat shifts with the inertia. And Jason hits his fist against the steering wheel. He screams. 

He screams until he finally hears himself screaming. Until his voice hurts, and he doesn’t have the energy to do it anymore. He feels hot tears running down his cheeks. Sobs, like aftershocks of his scream, tremble out of his throat. Broken, primal noises. His nose grows stuffy and wet. He feels young. He feels immature. 

He cries for he doesn’t know how long, focused on the minute details of the dashboard: the dusty CD slot, the bevels on the volume button. When the sobs finally stop, he gingerly touches his face, as if to check that he’s truly stopped. 

He thinks of Kory mentioning once, in what now feels long ago, that Dick cried when he found out Jason had died. Jason didn’t believe it. Dick hated him back then. They had their good moments, sure, but most of it was spent arguing and fighting. And they didn’t hold back. They fought to injure. 

But now, face cooling as the air begins to evaporate his tears, Jason understands. It’s less so a conscious decision to cry based on whether or not he liked his brother. It just happens. His body knowing how to act without a command from his brain. 

When Jason finally looks up, he recognizes the road. Shoulderless, empty; wildflowers and tallgrass spring up along its border. There are gates up ahead, dark against the pink evening sky.

He’s home. It’s family dinner night. 

*

It’s Cass who opens the door, and she looks surprised. She steps aside, letting him in, and peers back out the door, as though expecting Dick to follow. There’s no one, just Jason’s car sitting at the far end of the driveway, so she closes the door with a frown. 

“A little late,” Cass comments. She studies his face for a second. Jason lets her lead him into the dining room. 

He doesn’t know what he expected, but it’s not Damian sitting alone at the table with Alfred serving up the dishes. 

“Todd,” Damian says in surprise when Jason enters through the doorway. He doesn’t even sound annoyed. 

“Master Jason, you’re here,” Alfred says. He sounds both happy and troubled. His face morphs into a frown. “Is something the matter? Has something happened?”

It hits Jason that they think he’s here with news. News about Dick. Afterall, he hasn’t visited since Dick disappeared. It would make sense he’s only here to tell them something. 

Except the words don’t come out of his mouth. 

“It’s dinner night,” Jason says instead. Damian looks at him as though he’s gone insane. Alfred’s face softens. “Speaking of, where’s Tim? Where’s B?”

“They’re downstairs,” Alfred says, looking away. “They’re working on a new lead for Master Dick.”

Jason feels a pressure in his throat. 

“A lead?” he asks. Cass moves past him, taking her usual seat at the table. She doesn’t look at Jason nor the food. Just down at her plate. Damian does the same. 

“Yes, well. They found a roll of unfamiliar duct tape in Master Dick’s apartment,” Alfred says. “You know Master Dick never stocks up on those kind of supplies. Or even groceries for that matter.”

Alfred speaks in the present tense. Jason feels wrong. 

“Did they find anything?” he asks, doubtful. A roll of duct tape could mean anything. Even to the likes of Bruce and Tim. 

“I’m afraid not,” Alfred says. He looks tired. “However, Master Tim insists they will find something.”

Jason imagines Tim in the dark confines of the cave, only the sterile blue light of the computer to light what he is reading. 

“Don’t worry, Master Jason,” Alfred says, even though Jason is far from worried about Dick. He  _ can’t _ worry for Dick. Not anymore. “Sit,” Alfred directs, pulling out Jason’s usual chair. “You must be hungry.”

*

It’s on his way back to his safehouse that the idea trickles into Jason’s mind. It’s absurd at first. A flight of fancy, Alfred might call it. But then the thought returns when he thinks of Cass and Damian, both solemn and the dinner table. It returns when he pictures Tim silently wearing himself down to the bone in the cave. It returns when Jason imagines family dinner fading into obsolescence. 

Jason has made connections during his time as Red Hood. He knows people who could help him with this kind of stuff. People who owe him favors and can’t ask questions. 

In another world, that’s how it starts: with an idea. The idea grows, fast as a parasite, and by the time Jason is in his safehouse, he’s already decided who he will call. 

He falls back onto his couch, muscles aching. He feels a lump in the couch and groans, pulling out a blanket Cass had stuffed between the couch cushions the last time she was there. He buries his face in the fabric. It smells soft and familiar. 

He thinks of the body, still in the car, which is parked where it always is. He’d moved the body onto the floor of the car, draping an emergency blanket on top of the tarp and the sheets. He needs the body because he’s still going to bury him. Bury his brother properly, as he deserves to be.

Jason lingers on that thought, blinking sleepily. Right as he is about to shut his eyes, he catches sight of a blue robin, stitched into the fabric of the blanket his face is pressed against. 

He jolts up.

**EARTH 27**

XIII.

“I can’t stay here forever, Jason,” Dick says. He watches Jason pace back and forth, hands fidgeting behind his back. It’s been four days in the closet, arms and legs held together by duct tape. “Tonight’s family dinner. They’ll know something is up if we’re both not there.”

“Then I’ll text them,” Jason says. “Using your phone. I’ll tell them you’re sick, and they won’t think twice that I’m not there.”

“Jason,” Dick pleads. Jason suddenly turns on him, and Dick jumps. 

“Why can’t you just be okay with this?” Jason demands, sounding frantic. “Why can’t you help me out for once?”

“I’m  _ not  _ him!” Dick shouts. “You’re not my brother!”

Jason looks taken aback by that, and Dick’s mouth grasps for words. 

“I don’t mean, Jason, I —”

“You’ve said that to me before, you know,” Jason says, and Dick closes his eyes, feeling the pressure of tears building behind them. “But we got better, didn’t we? We can do it again.”

Dick shakes his head. 

“You told me after I came back that you’d always be there for me,” Jason says. “You told me that even if I need you, you’d be there, and right now, I need you.”

“Jason, I’m not him,” Dick says again, but it sounds weak, even to his own ears. He watches Jason turn away. “Jason,” Dick calls. “Jason, you know I care. If I didn’t have my own family out there, I’d stay.”

Jason turns a little.

“What really is the difference,” Jason asks, “between me and him? Between me and your Jason?”

Dick opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He knows what he wants to say, but not how to say it — that, really, there might not be a difference at all between his Jason and the Jason standing in front of him, that Dick doesn’t really care about the differences. He wouldn’t care if this Jason were two feet taller or two feet wider. Wouldn’t care if this Jason hated him. Because he loves his family. A love that exists regardless of time and dimension. It exists as long as the person in front of him needs it, and this Jason needs it. 

_ But he’s not yours, _ Dick’s brain keeps hammering. But shouldn’t love be stronger than that? Able to break laws, break fears, break biology, blood, time and space?

“Dickie, please,” Jason begs. “Just help me make this work.”

Dick acquiesces. 

“Of course, Little wing.”

*

They decide to go to dinner. Jason snips through all the duct tape and watches his brother anxiously as Dick walks around the apartment, getting movement back in his legs after sitting for four days. 

They take Dick’s car, still parked out front, but Jason drives. Jason keeps glancing over, as if expecting Dick to leap out the door suddenly. On the way, they pass by a cemetery, and Dick pictures a cold body suffocating on soil. They don’t talk the entire drive.

Walking into the manor, the sudden aroma of dinner and the warm chandelier lights make the last four days seem distant. Imagined, even. Damian allows Dick’s hug this time and wraps his arms around Dick’s waist in return. Dick combs his fingers through Damian’s hair. Alfred offers him a smile. Cass and Tim drag them over to the dinner table. Bruce says something to Jason with a hand on his shoulder. Jason cracks a smile. 

Everything that happened in the closet dims, burned out by the solidity of his family in front of him. Everything is real: the food, the table, the lights, his family. Perhaps it is an alternate reality, but it is a reality nonetheless. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I haven't updated in forever... this chapter was kinda short... life has been hellish... to all my writers out there--you know that itch you get sometimes to just rewrite the whole thing? I'm getting it right now, and I'm trying really hard to stave it off.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos always appreciated!


End file.
